on the moving of mountains: an interview with gary robbins

I first became aware of the name Gary Robbins in the Fall of 2010.  A shoe junkie, I'd caught wind of the soon to be released Montrail Rogue Racer, a stripped down offering from a brand that hadn't rolled out anything even remotely "minimalist" before.

I asked the internet to tell me more and YouTube introduced Gary's grinning face after a few moments of ridiculously demanding Northwestern uphilling.  Gary, then sponsored by Montrail, offered up his first impressions of the Rogue Racer before bombing back down the 3,000 vertical feet he'd just climbed.  The terrain revealed by the headcam that he was wearing was a preposterous tangle of roots, ruts and rocks that almost required a redefinition of the term "technical".

Forget the Rogue Racer.

I didn't know who this guy was, but I sure liked his style.

Six months later while visiting Escalante, Utah and nursing a minor Achilles issue, I discovered that Gary Robbins was in town too and just getting over an injury of his own.  He'd suffered a Jones fracture in late October and it had laid waste to the tail end of his very successful 2010 and all of 2011 up to that point.

It was April.

Basically, he hadn't run at all, much less tackled anything like the trail I'd seen on YouTube, since that Rogue Racer video had been filmed and posted.

I'd never heard of a Jones fracture.  As a textbook would report, it is an injury to the fifth metatarsal bone (located at the base of the small toe where it meets the foot) and occurs on the top of the bone in the midfoot.  More simply, it's more or less a runner's worst nightmare in that it is located in an area of the foot that is greatly impacted by any and every given footfall.  Worse yet, this type of break can show a stubborn unwillingness to knit.

But the fracture had, at last, healed and as I sat and talked with Gary he was beaming with the anticipation of his first post-break long run that very next day and the looking forward to training for and racing the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB) in the Alps that August alongside a field that was already stacking up to be the strongest assemblage of North American, European and other international runners to ever toe a 100-mile starting line.  His relief was evident and, even having just met the man, I was immediately excited for him and sure I'd be rooting for him later that summer.

In some small way Gary's enthusiasm and optimism on the immediate heels of the challenges he'd faced over the previous months of rehab made my injury seem insignificant and completely manageable.  I'd been feeling pretty low as I'd been unable to run during the couple of weeks leading up to the trip to Escalante and even my activities while there were limited by the very strong suggestion of my physical therapist.  My spirits were lifted after just a few minutes of getting-to-know-you with Gary.

In the days after I'd returned to the East Coast and Gary had made his way back home to North Vancouver, British Columbia, I decided to reach back out to him to see if he'd be willing to let me interview him regarding overcoming injury and remaining hopeful during rehabilitation and periods of not being able to run and, after the fact, coping with the lingering memories of having been let down by one's body.

He agreed, but completing that interview took a lot longer than either of us expected.

You have brains in your head.

You have feet in your shoes.

You can steer yourself any direction you choose.*

Gary Robbins does not possess an ultrarunning background.  He doesn't even have a running background.  None at all, in fact.  As he told me, "it was 2009 before I had even done a 100-mile running week ever in my entire life and, prior to 2004, I had run less than 100 miles in my then 26 years on the planet."  That last bit might have been an exaggeration, but, based on the sound of the voice on the other end of the telephone, I didn't think so.

Regardless, by 2007 he'd run a handful of ultras and won North Vancouver's Dirty Duo 50K that May.  In August of that following year, having switched gears to make ultrarunning his primary training focus, he won the first 100-miler that he entered, crossing the finish line of Squamish's Stormy Trail 100-Miler in a blazing 17:39:03.  Several 50K and 50 Mile podium finishes followed over the next year-and-a-half and the only performance that really fell short of his expectations came on a tough day at the 2009 Western States Endurance Run.  He'd become one of the top ultrarunners in British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest but needed a breakthrough performance to bring him broader recognition.

You won't lag behind, because you'll have the speed.

You'll pass the whole gang and you'll soon take the lead.

The H.U.R.T. Trail 100-Mile Endurance Run, more commonly referred to simply as the H.U.R.T. 100, is a notoriously punishing race that takes place in the tropical, volcanic mountains above Honolulu, Hawaii.  Consisting of five 20-mile loops, the course touts its roots, rocks, puddles and "mud wallows" (yes, mud wallows) and 20 total stream crossings.  The trails are narrow, sometimes treacherous and teeter along exposed ridges and dizzying vertical drops.  The highest point on the course is only 1,800 feet above sea level but the total elevation gain is an intimidating 24,500 feet.

Long story short, it's a beast of a course and has been won by some big names since its inception back in 2001.  In 2009 eventual Ultrarunner of the Year-winner Geoff Roes had shaved an astonishing 15 minutes off of the previous fastest finish, lowering it to a 20:28:00, a time that still very much confirmed how H.U.R.T. stacked up against other storied 100-milers with significantly faster course records.

As evidenced in the footage I'd seen, Gary liked technical courses and he loved attacking downhills.  There's just as much "down" as "up" at H.U.R.T., so Gary liked his chances.

He should have.

He found a way to peel another 16 minutes off of the course, blowing away Geoff's one-year old record with a 20:12:00.

"I flew to Hawaii and at that point I was a relative unknown.  I was known in my local community but I wasn’t even the favorite to win the race and I broke Geoff Roes’ course record.  Personally, that was my goal.  That’s what I went there for and I believed I could do that, but, I remember that people weren’t picking me."

That June Gary returned to Squaw Valley for another crack at Western States.  On the historic day now memorialized in J.B. Benna's film Unbreakable, Gary avenged his disappointing performance the year before with an impressive 6th place finish of which he remains extremely proud.

Photo courtesy of Glenn Tachiyama

"It’s funny, because I actually remember it more like a victory than I do a 6^th place finish and part of that was because the year before I went to Western States all piss-and-vinegar having done one 100 miler and tried some things and blew up and walked the final 20 miles to the finish line to finish 49^th.  A year later I went back with the desire to improve upon a mistake that I’d made and that 6^th place...I remember speaking of it numerous times, and my brain going 'you didn’t win that race, it just feels like you did because you won something  in yourself'."

Shortly after Western States, he established the fastest known time (FKT) on Canada's West Coast Trail and followed that up with a corresponding FKT of the East Coast Trail in his childhood home of Newfoundland.  While doing so, he raised $5000 for Right to Play, an international organization that uses sports to educate and empower children facing adversity.

http://www.righttoplay.com/International/Pages/Home.aspx

"I was really just on top of the world in terms of where I wanted to be and how I wanted to go about things and I was building continually on successes."

Those successes had garnered several sponsorships, most notably that of Mountain Hardwear/Montrail.  In October, Gary was flown to Oregon as part of a Mountain Hardwear running conference and learned that the company had decided to include him in more of their advertising and better promote him among their retailers.  It was the first real evidence of his increased exposure, the success of his running and the fact that he was being rewarded for it.

"I was in with Max King and Geoff Roes.  They’re buddies of mine but at the same token I have such a massive level of respect for them as runners.  Geoff was THE man…I mean he was undefeated in 100-mile races.  It was just a culmination of a lot for me and I felt like it couldn’t have gotten any better."

Wherever you fly, you'll be the best of the best.

Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

Except when you don't.

Because, sometimes, you won't.

The very next day, October 26, 2010, Gary broke his foot.

"It was such a weird experience because I was running with Max and Geoff and didn’t want to be the weak link.  I slipped on a snow covered rock, folded my foot in half and was in excruciating pain but I didn’t even make a peep.  I ran another 2 miles with them before we stopped.  That was supposed to be our turn around and Max said 'I think we should go a bit further' and I said 'I think I broke my foot'.  And I remember Geoff just looked at me and was like 'what do you mean you THINK you broke your foot?  You haven’t even said anything?'"

At the hospital in Bend, x-rays were taken and a nurse confirmed that the foot was broken.  Her exact words were "and it's kinda bad."

Well respected orthopedic surgeon Dr. Dory Boyer made it clear that the healing and recovery period for a Jones fracture could be lengthy and strongly suggested surgery.  After initially leaning that direction but reading conflicting reports that raised concerns about issues with the screw and the flexion point of the foot, Gary chose to go the route of immobilization until the two break points united.

"As a teenager I always felt that surgery and war wounds were cool but now as I was getting a bit older I was like 'no, I have to think this through, this is my body and I need to prevent anything foreign from going in it if I can.'  It’s not cool to be able to say I have a pin in my foot if I don’t need it in there.  So, I was adamant about not getting surgery if I didn’t have to."

That decision would be questioned throughout the process.

"Even when I broke my foot, I thought  'oh, whatever, it’s October, it's November, I’ll take a couple of months off.  It sucks but I’ll get through this.'" 

Gary prepared to be on crutches for 6 weeks, but repeated x-rays showed no healing and crutches remained a necessity.  Six weeks crept to eight weeks, two months became three.

He'd embraced running late in life and had never had any intention of it being his sole identity.  The severity of the Jones fracture and its refusal to improve made it that much more imperative that he not lose himself to the disappointment of not being able to run at all much less competitively in the short term. To stay positive and reconnect with a life not defined solely by sport, Gary reached back out to friends and family that knew him as far more than just a runner.

"Basically when I first was sidelined, I made a list of all my very good friends that I hadn’t seen, had not taken the time out of my training, out of my day, out of my life to spend time with.  I made a list of all the people that I truly have great friendships with and I went 'I’m gonna see every single one of these guys in this process.'"

He revisited Banff, where he'd lived for several years, and caught up with a number of old friends.  He flew home to Newfoundland and spent Christmas with his family.  The human interaction pulled him through and helped keep him from focusing solely on his injury, his not being able to run and his loss of fitness.

But he still longed to get back at it.

Though it took far longer than predicted, the non-union finally did begin to take and on February 1, 2011, Gary was off of crutches and back on his own two feet.  He was still registered for both Western States (June) and UTMB (August).

Having gone from a non-runner to a successful, competitive runner in such a short period of time to begin with and possessing a mentality that allowed him to go far and fast, he jumped right back into training and training hard.

"I didn’t contemplate getting injured again.  I was told that pain should be my only indicating factor of if I’m doing too much and, realistically, I didn’t have a lot of pain in my foot."

Immediately, he was consistently doing more sooner than the timetables provided by his doctor would have suggested or advised.  He ran a 10K four weeks earlier than the doctor said he should.  He logged a 20+ mile run the day after we first met in Escalante and finished 3rd at the Capitol Peak 50-Miler in Olympia, Washington the following week.  And did it all pain-free. 

He was back.

You can get so confused

that you'll start to race

down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace

and grind on for miles cross weirdish wild space,

headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.

"And people around me who were outspoken were saying the same thing:  'I don’t think this is smart.'  And then I think a lot of people were biting their tongues because they didn’t have the place to say that.  But the people that had the right to say that to me said it.  More than once."

But he didn't have pain in his foot and he shelved all of the other advice and input and clung to that one easy-to-measure guide given by the doctor, "if you have pain in your foot, slow down and don’t run."  He didn't, so he didn't.

Two weeks after Capital Peak, Gary and his girlfriend and fellow ultrarunner Linda Barton flew to Hawaii for a mix of vacation and training.  The plan was simple;  get up early every morning, log 10-20 daily miles of technical, mountainous running with a goal of 100 miles for the week and then retire to the beach after training each day for relaxation and recovery.  They stuck to the plan and it was everything they'd hoped it would be.

On day 6 of their 7 day stay, Gary and Linda were running separate sections of the H.U.R.T. course that Gary knew so well.  In the midst of his 85th mile of the week, Gary rolled his foot and quite literally heard the bone snap.

And this time the diagnosis wouldn't be a surprise.

"I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt, I KNEW it was the exact same fracture line."

But getting to that diagnosis would require some significant work.  He didn't have his phone and he didn't know when or even if Linda would pass through that section of the course.  He wasn’t even certain that there was anyone else in the vicinity so all he could do was begin inching his way toward the nearest trailhead.

Crawling and hobbling, Gary needed 45 minutes to navigate a single mile.  Reaching a main intersection, he was finally able to call out to some volunteers who were busy with trail maintenance.   The volunteers called search-and-rescue and Linda was contacted.  There'd be no ambulance waiting to whisk Gary away from this remote section of the island.  He was shuttled instead by a basket dangling beneath a helicopter that evacuated him to a point at which an ambulance could then transport him to the hospital.

Gary had been wearing his GoPro when the injury occurred and he'd kept right on filming.

"I went through a period of almost shock and I actually had to delete a lot of the video footage because I could only watch it once and I didn’t want anybody to see some of the things that I went through because what happened at that moment wasn’t just the pain of breaking my foot.  It was the overwhelming, flooding knowledge of what I was gonna be going through again and I was watching all my running dreams just dissipate and disappear before my eyes and the biggest and hardest thing to take in in those nano-seconds of processing what’s happening was having to ask 'how can I ever trust my own body? I don’t know if I’m ever going to get past this.'”

His first thought was UTMB.  The race that he'd been dreaming of for a couple of years, the race that was being billed as playing host to perhaps the most competitive 100-mile field ever, a race that he'd intended to train for specifically and single-mindedly in the hope of having another one of those magical days that met his expectations and far exceeded the expectations of others, was gone.

And that was only the most immediate of the dreams that had slipped away.  For all Gary knew, he'd never race competitively again.

After flying home to B.C., Gary paid an all too familiar visit to Dr. Boyer.  Surgery was again prescribed and even scheduled before Gary decided to forego it for a second time.

"I was going to give it one more shot and I was really going to rehab it properly once it finally healed."

Once healing occurred, it could be determined if competitive running would be possible.  The doctor had planted the seed that Gary might eventually need to revisit what he'd been doing, consider lower-impact options like cycling and possibly even avoid mountain running entirely.  The reality was that the type of technical downhill running that he loved the most delivered a tremendous amount of stress on joints, tendons and ligaments and his foot had obviously given beneath the strain of that punishment.

The second x-ray, taken a few weeks later, was worse than the first.  Deja vu.

Getting a non-union Jones fracture to "take" is not a guarantee.  Gary knew this, perhaps better than anyone.  He still wanted to avoid surgery but he was going to need help.

Dr. Boyer suggested that Gary try Orthofix, a bone stimulation healing device that introduces an electro-magnetic current to trigger both "sides" of a fractured bone to begin to fuse.  It basically serves as a mediator between two non-communicating parts of the body and gets the healing process back on track.  It wouldn't necessarily be quick but it was progress and non-invasive.  Another x-ray, taken a few weeks later, showed improvement.

The physical process was underway, but there was psychological healing required too.

This second go-round really made Gary question his running mortality.  Had he given too much to a sport where success can be fleeting even without injury?

"As much as I’m passionate about it and I love it, I didn’t even have this in my life in 2003.  In 2004 I got into it and now, in 2011, I’m struggling to remember who I actually am without being a runner .  I decided that I was going to have something positive, long term, that came away from being sidelined. I was going to focus my energy toward something else and accomplish something else and utilize the time so that I could eventually, hopefully, look back on it and say 'this positive came from this negative.'” 

He still very much loved running, loved trail running, loved mountain running and knew that he wanted to be a runner, in some fashion, for the rest of his life.  But even if he could get back to performing at a high level, he understood that at best he likely had a 3-5 year window of  strong, competitive running ahead of him.  He intended to stay connected to running far longer than that.

He accepted a course management role with Five Peaks, a regional trail running series.  He soon began doing the same for MOMAR, an adventure racing series.  That led to the decision to start a 50-mile race of his own (along with co-Race Director Geoff Langford), the Squamish 50.

http://www.squamish50.com/

He turned to a mentor, John Salmonson, the RD at H.U.R.T., for race directing advice and received far more than that.

John had run a staggering 95,000 miles over many, many years of ultrarunning and had done so at an extremely high level.  After a major knee injury, he had been told by doctors that surgery was required and could not wait.  John figured he could sneak in one more 100-miler, did so and was then told by doctors that there wasn't anything left of the knee to salvage.  He never ran again.

“His advice to me was simple, ‘Don’t fight this…let yourself heal and take the time you need.’"

A much needed fork in the road had been reached.

Gary was still working toward a return to elite racing but was gaining perspective and fostering and nurturing a long-term connection to the running community.

I asked if that would have been possible or, at the very least, infinitely more difficult if his prognosis had been as final as John's had been.

"It’s almost impossible to answer because I wasn’t actually confronted with that reality. I never entirely lost faith in the idea that I would get back to where I was.  Ever.  It was never a question in my mind no matter what I was hearing from doctors or anybody else that I would get back to where I wanted to be.  I was just realizing that the process was incredibly longer than I ever gave it credit for initially."

This time around he had spent 4 months on crutches and a couple of additional weeks in a walking boot.  All told, his ankle had been immobile for 8 months of 2011.

Stepping out of the boot and setting aside crutches in October, Gary emerged far more wary.

"I was on edge all of the time, I didn’t trust my own body.  I was hyper-sensitive, hyper-aware.  I didn’t want to chance anything.  It really was the polar opposite of the first time around."

His confidence was shaken and his body was going to struggle to heal the rest of the way without it.  Enter Luke Nelson.

A competitive runner, a ski mountaineering racer and a physician's assistant well-versed in Jones fractures, Luke offered to review Gary's x-rays, give his second opinion and help develop a rehabilitation program.  The plan he mapped out was slow and conservative, but Gary knew that it came from a fellow endurance athlete and a kindred spirit who fully understood what Gary aspired to at the end of the process.

He was allowed to run a single kilometer in the first week of physical therapy.  The second week he was allowed to run a single kilometer twice.  For an ultrarunning champ, it was a maddeningly slow build, but Gary stuck to the plan.

Finally, on January 1st, he ran a full 10 kilometers.

"I customized the distance in a local 50K race that happens on New Year's Day that I had done 5 times and had won once before.  That for me was one of those celebrations…even though I ran 10 while everyone else ran 50, I ran 10K and I felt like I had finally gotten something back at that point."

With Luke's continuing guidance, Gary slowly tacked on mileage and received regular follow-up x-rays.  Those films, thankfully, repeatedly confirmed healing and his body sent nothing but positive reports to support those assessments.

Surely Gary would have liked a do-over for 2011, but he'd gained an immeasurable amount of perspective over the full course of sustaining and fully rehabbing his injuries.

Both he and Luke made it to the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc this past August.  Linda came along too and high up in the Alps the week before the race, she answered "yes" to a certain popped question and made the trip, race or no race, one to remember.

Photo courtesy of Gary Robbins

As has happened on several occasions during its short history, the race was modified just before the start due to nasty weather predictions, especially at the highest elevations, and subsequent concerns for the safety of its participants.  A hundred miles was reduced to 104 kilometers and a couple of top registered runners, frustrated by the decision, even pulled out of the race.

But Gary had overcome too much and traveled too far to NOT run.  Nearly 14 hours after starting from the French village of Chamonix, he crossed a finish line that he'd dreamed of for so long.  He wasn't standing on the podium, but sometimes dreams-come-true are sweet even if different than first imagined.

And, after all that had transpired, "there's always next year" probably has a pretty nice ring to it.

"There was an appreciation through being sidelined that I never would have possessed otherwise.  I always would have slightly taken it for granted without ever realizing it.  I always appreciated it, it was never lost on me, but you really don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone and when it was gone I just realized that this was a true love of my life, running, and it came to me late in life and I don’t ever want to be without it and it’s not lost on me now that I am incredibly fortunate to be able to run.  Period."

Welcome all the way back, Gary.

Kid, you'll move mountains!

------------------------------------------------------

*During the weeks that I was transcribing my phone interview with Gary and doing my best to properly tell his story, my girls pulled Oh, the Places You'll Go from their bookshelf and added it to our nightly before-bed reading rotation.  It's a book that I can't remember NOT remembering, but the words took on new meaning in light of Gary's journey and begged to be included (or maybe I begged them).  My thanks and pleas for forgiveness to the timeless Dr. Seuss for letting me repurpose his words here. 

...everything but the drinks.

I received a ridiculously generous invite from my Osprey sales rep to fly to Cortez, Colorado in April and join Osprey Packs on a trip into the canyons of southeastern Utah.


I and the other invitees would get to test packs and other gear, immerse ourselves in the culture that makes Osprey such a unique, inspiring manufacturer and, well, play.

Since getting back, I've started and stopped writing a recap blog at least a couple of dozen times.  Just like a western sky, free of the ambient light of urban sprawl, this trip was on a scale that's hard to capture on film (film?) or in print.

When my new friend, Sean McCoy, who I'd met on the trip published his review for Gear Junkie, I decided to bag making a full review of my own.  I would, however, definitely encourage you to read Sean's post:  Gear Junkie: Into the Depths

I decided instead, being a gear junkie myself, to snap a few photos of what I carried, wore, ate off of, etc. during the trip.  This type of thing may not be of interest to anybody, but it's exactly what I find myself most curious about when reading running, backpacking, adventuring reviews.

Sean carried the same pack that I did, the Aether 60, and gave it some love in his article, so I'll skip right past that.

With a weather report that promised clear skies and little to no chance of precipitation, all 14 members of the group decided to leave tents behind.  Our guide, Chris Barber, reportedly had a sizable tarp but it never made an appearance as we all slept under stunningly open skies.

My sleep set-up consisted of a borrowed Rab Neutrino Endurance 200 sleeping bag.  This is an 800-fill down mummy-shaped bag that has a pretty solid (in my book...I sleep warm) 32 degree temperature rating, packs down small and weighs less than 2 pounds.  Killer.  And Rab includes one of the sweetest, double-cinch waterproof stuff sacks I've seen.  I was super impressed and the buyer-in-me has me strongly considering adding the Rab line to Backcountry Edge's Spring 2013 assortment.  I'm a huge fan of sleeping bag liners and the life-extending boost that they give sleeping bags and I long ago fell in love with my Cocoon Silk Expedition Liner.  This also packs down to nothing, weighs a couple of ounces and justifies its inclusion on every trip.  I slept on the ultra-lightweight Klymit Inertia X-Frame inflatable sleeping pad and loved it as much as I expected to when I chose it for the trip.  My head rested on Exped's Air Pillow and you can insert every word I wrote about the liner here to know how I feel about it.

Osprey equipped each of us with a trio of SealLine Dry Sacks (2.5L, 10L and 30L) and it was a good thing too, as we hit an extended stretch in slot canyons on the last day that required first waist deep and then sternum deep (if you're as short as I am) wading.  I didn't actually end up dipping my pack, but it was nice to know everything was fully protected.  I'd brought my own SealLine eCase which I've been using for several seasons to protect my point-and-shoot.  I also brought along a couple of waterproof Granite Gear Air ZippDitty sacks which were perfect for keeping headlights, snacks, first aid and other gear organized.  These fit perfectly inside the hipbelt pockets on a couple of the packs I use at home.  The Aether 60 doesn't have hipbelt pockets, my one gripe, but these still came in handy for use inside the Aether's lid pocket.

Ah, my feet.  I hiked primarily in a pair of TrekSta Evolution II trail shoes.  I've been testing them for TrekSta along with a pair of their Edict running shoes and intend to post a far comprehensive review in the near future.  For now, suffice to say that these were hands down the most comfortable, responsive hiking shoes I've ever worn.  The Evolution II is a lower-profile version of TrekSta's award-winning Evolution Mid GTX.  I'm not a big fan of GORE-TEX (as hot as my feet get in standard mesh shoes, I start sweating at the very thought of a waterproof liner) and the Evolution Mid flirts with being a true boot and I just don't do boots.  I also made room in my pack for the New Balance 110's and was glad I did.  At the end of the long second day of crawling over/under rocks, rappelling down cliffs and navigating tilted canyon walls we reached a campsite atop an incredible sandstone shelf that (with a little creativity and a tack-on stretch in the wash below) served up a 3+ mile run.  These shoes absolutely shined on this surface and made me sad all over again at the news that the Slickrock 100 isn't being held this year.  Alas.  Throughout the trip, I wore DryMax socks.  Duh.


Yep, I just laid down a duh.

On the first night that we arrived in Cortez, our group of 14 was split into smaller "cooking groups" and each group had an MSR Reactor Stove System to use for cooking.  I've been a fan of the system since it launched and, if it wasn't so spendy, I may have invested in one of my own somewhere along the way.  Anyway, with the stove (and food!) provided, we only needed to worry about bringing utensils, cups, flatware and whatever else we thought we'd need for mealtimes.  I kept things simple.  I made friends with the Snow Peak 600 Titanium Double-Wall mug a long, long time ago and it waits on the counter for me each morning, accompanies on my drive to work and keeps me company at my desk all day long.  It also tags along on every backpacking trip, including this one.  I also brought the Optimus Folding Spork, a collapsible, lightweight and surprising little durable utensil.  My meal kit was rounded out with my two Guyout Design Squishy Bowls.  Yes, that IS what they are called.  Laugh if you want, but this little malleable silicone bowls are a backpacker's dream come true.  Trust me.  To ward off my addicted tremens, I also packed plenty of Honey Stinger Waffles...if I had any left, I'd have included them in the photo.  Yum. 

As warm as it was, I didn't carry a lot of clothes.  I'm not sure I even needed it, but I did bring along my lightweight Outdoor Research Transcendent Sweater and, I must admit, it was nice to have this low-profile down piece at night while we sat beneath the stars and passed around the wine (yes, we hauled along quite a bit of wine...in Platypus bottles, cause we're backpackers, see).  In the mornings, I slipped into Rab's super lightweight Boreas Pull-On softshell.  There's not much to it, but it's one of those great pieces that adds just enough warmth and separation from cool air.  And, it takes up very little space inside a pack.  I had a breathable, brimmed Mountain Hardwear hat (the name escapes me) that I wore during the day to keep off sun and glare and another of their beanies that I wore at night to ward off the chill.  A pair of Native Silencer sunglasses gave further protection from the sun and the Mammut S-Flex headlamp served as my light source at night.  I'm not a big fan of sunglasses though I fully respect the protection that they give.  The Silencers do their job and are fairly un-obnoxious as performance eyewear goes.  The S-Flex is hardly the brightest or most feature-rich lamp that I own but I appreciate how lightweight it is and how small it is when all I need is a little bit of extra visibility around a campsite.

Osprey gave us one final parting gift and it was a sweet one, a very limited edition embroidered Hornet 32.  This is one wickedly-light (1 lb, 5 oz) day pack that can be used with or without its lid and is ready-made for fast-and-light pursuits, be that running, biking, fast-packing or whatever else you have in mind.  Good stuff.  It didn't accompany us on the trip itself, but deserved a mention nonetheless.

That was pretty much my full rig.  That and the wine.

an ano-what? (Review of the Mountain Hardwear Ghost Whisperer Anorak)

Went for a run this past weekend (and plan on having a lot more to say about that) up on the Appalachian Trail between Route 501, north of Bethel, and Route 183.  I ran North-to-South on the 9.5 mile "out" and then came back to where I'd started.  I had hoped to go further and run longer but my phone/alarm clock struggled with the "spring forward" required of it and either botched its task or (as I choose to believe) kindly decided to just let me sleep in.  That trimmed a good 2 hours off of the time I had to be out on the trail.

Anyway, while I was out, I decided on a whim to shoot a snippet of video about the Mountain Hardwear Ghost Whisperer Anorak that I was wearing AND have been wearing on just about every run I've taken the last couple of weeks.  The pullover is brand new for Spring '12 but I've been seeing it here and there on Montrail athletes for many months.  Long story short, I've been coveting it and sometimes when this is the case, I end up disappointed with the product once I put hands on it.  Not so with the Ghost Whisperer.

The video is not very comprehensive and gave me a chance to catch my breath as much as anything before continuing on my way, but I kinda like how it turned out.  I shot it on my point-and-shoot and had made up my mind that I was going to do no more that put the camera on my little tripod, hit "play" and see what happened.

One take and done.  If it didn't work, no harm done, off I'd go.

Like I said, I kinda like how it turned out.

Humor me on the beard primping/fluffing...it's a bad habit.

So, this was a test run (ha, ha) as much as anything and you can watch or not watch as you see fit.  If you are intrigued, I'd be remiss to not mention that we sell the jacket at my place of work, Backcountry Edge.

"And how, Leon, might we get there?"  Glad you asked.

http://www.backcountryedge.com/mountain_hardwear-ghost-whisperer-anorak.aspx

"Screw you, salesman, I just want to know more about the jacket!"

Got it.  You can visit http://www.mountainhardwear.com/ if you'd prefer to hear directly from the manufacturer.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got running to do.

week seventeen.

Let's all agree to skip right past week sixteen.  Treat it like the 13th floor in a high rise.  Per my physical therapist's orders, I did not run one single step.

Week seventeen would consist of a trip to the high desert of Escalante, Utah to attend the Mountain Hardwear Basecamp with the accompanied warning to NOT climb and think hard, really hard, about engaging in running of any sort.  If I could return from Utah no worse than I left Pennsylvania, aggressive therapy could begin on the following Monday and we'd see if working order could be restored.

Breathing in the rugged beauty of Utah while surrounded by the stoking energy of kindred spirits, I found myself lacing up my sneaks and giving things a go.  Surprised?  Me neither.

Still on East Coast time, I had no problems rising early on my first morning at Escalante Outfitters and heeding the directions given the night before to head right down the dusty road towards the nearby state park.  Even on a slight downhill, my lungs were feeling every inch of the 5812 feet of elevation.

Sliding past the trailhead gate, I initially veered away from Bailey's Wash, following instead a broad old farm road that skirted around the ridge line.  Almost immediately, I kicked up no less than 30 mule deer.  Most of the herd vanished over the hill but several remained on the horizon watching my slow approach.  I pushed the herd around two or three more bends before deciding to try to get up to higher ground. 

Huffing and puffing and progressing mostly on all fours (or at least three), I made it to the top of the ridge and turned to look back toward town.  The famed Grand Escalante Staircase was now visible in the distance.

Pleasantly surprised by how my Achilles felt, I dropped into the wash and settled into something more like an actual run.  A few stray sets of human footprints led the way past high red rock cliffs, scrub brush, tumbleweeds and small, silent pines.

I didn't set a great pace in the sandy track of the wash, but was pleased to return to camp with over seven pain-free miles.  With fingers crossed that I wouldn't be hobbled by the end of the day, I popped some Aleve, showered, stretched and joined new friends for a day of hiking along Pine Creek.

I awoke the next morning relieved to find no ill effects from the prior day.  Howling winds helped the easy decision to shelve any further running for the moment.  I spent the day exploring the Spooky and Peek-a-Boo slot canyons and managed to avoid doing anything too much like "climbing".

Knowing that I'd need to leave before the sun rose on Friday, I wanted to make the most of Thursday.  Feeling strong and encouraged by the continuing cooperation of my Achilles, I awoke shortly after 4:00 AM and began a 46-mile drive to the indescribable beauty of Bryce Canyon.

I literally did not see another set of headlights the entire way which was absolutely fine by me.  I passed through the unmanned gates and headed to Rainbow Point at the far end of the park road.  At more than 9100 feet, the point was certainly going to test my cardio.

There was plenty of snow still on the ground and route-finding was difficult as I tried to find and follow the Under the Rim Trail down towards the canyon floor.  The pace was slowed even further by my need to stop every few minutes to soak in the view and bask in the rising sun.

Neither words nor photos will do any justice, so I'll simply say that it was a miraculous day to be alive and I spent that hour and a half marveling at my surroundings and reflecting appreciatively on what a real privilege it was to be where I was at that moment doing something I love to do.

Finally returning to the Rainbow Point parking lot, I made a quick call back to camp to report where I was and that I was on my way.  I grabbed a coffee enroute and felt certain that I still had energy in the tank.

Shortly after hopping out of the car, I climbed into Jon Webb's station wagon and joined a small group headed to Lower Calf Creek for more running.  We settled into a shared rhythm and I didn't hesitate to offer a "maybe a little faster" when asked if the pace was satisfactory.  A moment or two later, I was eating those words as the increase left me gasping for air.  We may have been 4,000 feet lower than Rainbow Point but we were still much higher than what I'm used to and I struggled to adjust.  Jon was kind enough to settle back into something closer to our original pace without any prompting.  Arriving at the end of the path, I found him welcoming me to the amazing spectacle of Lower Calf Falls. 

I shrugged off my initial apprehension after dipping my hand in the pool at the base of the falls and decided to take a swim.  The icy water made it a short swim, though, at the urging of my companions, I did go in a second time in what proved to be a failed attempt to swim out beneath the falls.  The payoff was the shared laughter over the frozen state of my testicles.

Zak and Ed had joined me, Jon and Cory and a kindly day hiker snapped our photo in front of the falls. Soon thereafter, we set out again at a comfortable but solid pace, talking and laughing the entire way back to the trailhead.

Even after two separate runs, a good bit of climbing and a day of double-digit mileage, my legs felt great.  I was extremely thankful to not be favoring my Achilles in the slightest and relished having logged trail time at elevation.

Back in Pennsylvania, April is in the rear view.  It was, by far, my lowest mileage month to date in 2011 and came with several disappointments. It's hard to complain, however, when I was able to close the month with running I will remember, vividly and fondly, forever.

lumberjacket (a review of the Mountain Hardwear Dry.Q Effusion Jacket).

In the days just after the turn of the new year, a package arrived for me at work with the promise of it being my lucky day.

Apparently, the kind folks at Mountain Hardwear had either no idea of my slovenly appearance or were willing to risk folks seeing me in their wares in trade for some user feedback on the Effusion Jacket that is bound for the consumer market in Fall 2011.

To be frank, the jacket looked way too sharp for me and my modern lumberjack fashion leanings.  My love of black-and-white does the jacket a cruel injustice by failing to portray it's deep orange-on-charcoal gray coloring.  Various tonal highlights on the torso, sleeves and shoulders provide high reflectivity for night and low-light use without popping off the jacket in a bling-y way that turn me off on other running apparel.



Moving forward, Mountain Hardwear will no longer be partnering with GORE-Tex, instead employing its own proprietary waterproof/breathable fabrics, most notably Dry.Q which it is touting as being superior to other fabrics on the market in its ability to keep the user dry both inside and out by improving on air permeability.  Dry.Q will be utilized in three different offerings with slightly different characteristics based on expected conditions and demands.  The Dry.Q Active on the Effusion Jacket is lightweight, stretchy, extremely breathable and fully waterproof.

Or so the claim.

I decided to not jump immediately to conclusions and instead put the jacket through the rigors before chiming in.

But before I do that, I'll call out some of the other features.

Remaining true to a straight-aerobic focus, the Effusion Jacket isn't overstocked on pockets, offering just a single, low-profile (but sizable) Napoleon-style pocket high on the left chest.  The pocket has nicely accommodated my smallish digital camera and done so in a fashion that keeps me from even noticing that I'm carrying the camera while running.  Which, for the record, is stellar.  The mesh backing on the pocket includes a reinforced pass-through for headphone/earpiece wires that make it ideal for iPods, mp3 players or whatever else those types of things are called.  Additionally, there is a nifty little tab on the collar of the jacket (see below) that I would assume keeps headphone wires out of the way.  I don't run with listening devices any longer but thinking back to when I did, I believe this feature would prove out as a slick addition.

The jacket does not employ true waterproof zippers, but an overlay design provides a protective flap over the full-length front zipper as well as the zipper on the pocket.  I would assume that this will help keep pricing down and may also improve overall breathability.  I'm no engineer, so don't quote me on that but it seems to make sense.

Some jackets seem to me to have too many adjustment points that result only in the extra weight of buckles, closures, etc. and additional manufacturing costs (passed along to the consumer) while only being called into play infrequently.  The Effusion Jacket has a single adjustment point with a drawstring closure placed in an offset position that rests internally on the right side of the jacket.  This placement makes it easy to reach but also keeps it from being a potential annoyance.  I never noticed that it was there while wearing the jacket which is all I ask.

Some people don't like thumb loops.  I am not some people.  For Winter wear (and a good bit of Spring and Fall), I crave thumb loops.  I should clarify.  I actually couldn't care less about the loops themselves, but they are there to pull a sleeve forward and eliminate the space that tends to open up between gauntlet-less gloves and most base layers or jackets.  In some cases, this little bit of extra coverage is enough to keep gloves at home.  The Effusion Jacket has the feature but also an extended cuff that Mountain Hardwear touts as "better than a thumb loop".  This cuff can be pulled over the fingers entirely and serve as a make-shift mitten.  Personally, I didn't find that to be very comfortable but I would employ it in a pinch on colder than expected days.

 Targeted body-mapping makes the Effusion Jacket move nicely with the wearer, bolsters potential wear points and manages overall weight nicely.

Mountain Hardwear is sure to have all kinds of facts, figures, charts, graphs, etc. to back their claims of breathability, air permeability and waterproofness.  As well they should.  Overcoming GORE's looming shadow will surely be a challenge, at least in Dry.Q's first couple of seasons.

This uneducated blogger doesn't have much in the way of figures, charts and graphs so you'll have to take my word on it.  The Effusion Jacket breathes better than anything that I own or have owned.  I should add that despite my lumberjack claims and lack of fashion sense, I don't run in canvas or flannel and do have some performance pieces of which I'm quite fond but less so since my care package arrived from Mountain Hardwear.  We've certainly had more than our fair share of wind in the Mid-Atlantic this winter but none of it found its way inside the Effusion Jacket.  In the past my go-to pieces for wind protection needed to be worn in conjunction with other layers if I also needed warmth or further weather protection.  The Effusion Jacket cut the wind, shed water and held warmth pretty well considering that it is an uninsulated piece.  Yes, there were days when I generated enough heat to sweat inside the jacket but only because of the effort given and the temperature not because the jacket itself wasn't breathable...wrap a furnace in chicken wire and the furnace is still going to be hot.  Right?

Other than getting to test drive the jacket, I didn't get any kickbacks from Mountain Hardwear or promises of any further gear by agreeing to the test drive.  No one at Mountain Hardwear even knows that I bother with this humble blog (though I intend now to share the link) and I was fully prepared to share a thumbs down if I was unimpressed.  In fact, because of the bold claims being made in the presentation of the new Dry.Q technology, I was going to need the jacket to exceed by a healthy margin the performance that I've coaxed out of other pieces.

And, it just so happens, it did.